


Avoidance, January 10, 1974

by MissAtomicBomb77



Series: For the Greater Good, Let's Do the News [24]
Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAtomicBomb77/pseuds/MissAtomicBomb77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Someone from Cambodia came to see you and you aren’t going to see them? That’s rude, even for you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avoidance, January 10, 1974

January 10, 1974  
2:20pm  
Outside the Pan Am Building  
New York, New York

“This wasn’t a really good time for me to do this. I was in meetings.” Arthur hops into the town car and as soon as he shuts the door, the vehicle is on the move.

“I know,” Leona says, staring out of the opposite window as the driver weaved through traffic. “I am sorry but someone was going to be at the apartment that I… couldn’t see.”

“Oh,” Arthur says, half distracted as he read the folded newspaper he managed to bring with him. “Who would that be?”

“Someone from Cambodia,” she says.

This has his attention now. “Someone from Cambodia came to see you and you aren’t going to see them? That’s rude, even for you.”

“I thought that you would appreciate the fact I’m trying to leave that part of my life behind. It’s just someone I used to work with returning my things. Besides, your meetings would have been cancelled anyway. My father wanted to meet this person.”

Arthur shifts in his seat, trying to face her, but Leona is still sitting as far away as possible and looking out the window. “Your father wanted to meet this person but you couldn’t be bothered?”

“Stop,” She instructs, turning away from the window now. “He happens to be a reporter and father has paid him quite a bit for stories and he just wanted to put a name to the face. Stop trying to make it more than it is.”

“Fine,” he says, returning to his paper, but not really believing her. He had always had a hard time understanding her and her motivations and he wasn’t sure if there really was something more to this or not. “Dolores from the paper is going to meet us there for photos. Try and look happy, hmm?”

“Try not to be an ass and I sure will.” She’s back looking outside the window now.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Arthur slaps the newspaper down on his lap.

“Try not and look so gleeful while spending my father’s money for a new ring, okay?”

“Leona,” he sighs. “I’m trying to make an effort. Really, but for all intents and purposes you left me. You left your family and you were doing… whatever you thought you needed to do. I’m here, I didn’t stray and despite… everything, I want to give this a chance.”

“I know.” She catches herself wringing her hands in her lap. “You’ve been there for my father and while I’m not sure how I feel about my relationship with my father, you have a great relationship with him. This seems…” like the least I could do, she thinks. Leona looks out the window and she knows that they are only blocks away from Tiffany’s now. “I’m trying.”

Arthur sighs sadly. “I hope you’re trying for the right reasons Leona.”

~~~

“My daughter could not be here and I apologize on her behalf,” Katherine says as she walks into the drawing room. “I didn’t know that she had an appointment with her fiancé to replace her engagement ring.”

Charlie Skinner had risen to his feet the moment Lee’s mother had walked into the room. He hoped that he had managed to hide the disappointment that crossed his face. He suspects that he failed. As she sat on a delicate chair, she spoke.

“Please sit Mr. Skinner. My husband does in fact want to meet you and he’s coming from the office, but it will take him some time to get here. Can I offer you some coffee or tea perhaps?”

“No, but I appreciate the offer.” Charlie returned to his place on the leather couch and took a moment to admire Katherine Lefebvre. There was no doubt that she was Lee’s mother, but now having seen her, he knows what features Lee must have from her father. Katherine is a beautiful woman which was a testament to the saying that the apple does not fall far from the tree.

“My Leona, she wrote me letters while she was there. They often took a very long time to get to me. She had already been home a few weeks when the last ones arrived.” Katherine says, looking down at her hands and back up at Charlie. “She told me everything and she told me nothing Mr. Skinner. I… don’t want to be insolent, because I don’t know who you are in relation to my Leona, but can I ask you things?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Lefebvre. I’m not sure I understand.” Charlie says now, watching her carefully.

“Please, call me Katherine. She told me a little about her work and her thoughts on things, but never much about her actual day to day living. I have no idea who the people in her life were and she won’t talk to me about it.”

“She may not be ready to talk about it.” He pauses for a moment before he speaks. “I work for UPI. I freelance, mostly magazine articles now, but I was previously embedded with the 144th Artillery in Vietnam before moving on to Cambodia.”

“Oh,” Katherine coos. “Have you known her the whole time?”

“I met her about three or so months after she came to Cambodia. I don’t have any insight on her time in Vietnam other than the fact I know she was there.”

Katherine nods thoughtfully at this. “So you were there during her…ordeal?”

Charlie swallows hard at this question. “Yes. I knew that the military did everything they could for her, despite their… mistakes.”

“Were there people there for her… when she came back?”

“Everyone, they all adored her. Someone in particular was there for her as well.”

“Her lover,” She supplies for Charlie. “I know there was someone special in her life there. She mentioned it in the vaguest of terms.”

“Ah,” Charlie says, looking at his hands. He’s not sure what to think of that piece of information. “I’m not sure what she might have written to you, but she seemed happy as far as I know.”

“Right up until the end?” Katherine asks. “When she came home, she said that her… lover, the Marine? That he died.”

Charlie felt as if all the air was sucked out of the room then. He closes his eyes and he wishes that the ground would just open up and swallow him whole. The only thought that could permeate his shock was that Lee was so angry with him that she told the world he was dead. He can’t look at Katherine now and finds himself looking at his hands. “It’s very strange there. It’s difficult to convey how quickly things can change. How lives… and love can come to an end.”

“I’ve always imagined it was a sort of alternate reality.”

“That is… a surprisingly accurate description.” Charlie says now, looking back at Katherine. They stare at each other for a long minute and Charlie can’t help but shake the feeling that she knows exactly who he is and his place in Lee’s life.

Before the conversation can continue, a maid enters the room and announces that Mr. Lefebvre is home.

~~~

“Why do they all have to be so ostentatious?” Leona asks as she peers into the cases.

Arthur can’t help but laugh now. “Your first ring was ostentatious. These are less so.”

“What if I snag it on something and the diamond goes flying out?” She asks and she’s very serious about the question.

“You wore the other ring. Did that happen?” he laughs a little at her for her question.

“I wore it twice,” she admitted. “That night and for the picture for the paper for that very reason, I thought I was going to lose it.” She’s now searching the cases and starts to veer away from the traditional diamonds and finds herself looking at simple bands. “What about just a band?”

That actually makes Arthur laugh out loud. “We aren’t church mice, Leona. Something with a stone in it, please.” He places his hand at the small of her back and gently guides her over to the traditional diamonds again. She bites her lower lip but she lets him lead.

She doesn’t want any of these rings. She doesn’t want to be here yet at the same time she can’t be at home either. Leona is looking at all of these rings and all she can think about is Charlie and the ring he gave her. Alright, the ring gave her purse with no explanation. Did he want to marry her? How long had he had that ring anyway? These questions are bubbling up in her. She didn’t want to think about him, she wants to be angry with him. She wants to never forgive him ever again. She should not be here. They should be back in Phnom Penh eating sweet rice with mangos and talking about the baby.

Then it occurs to her: the baby. Did he buy her a ring just because of the baby? She can’t help but be mad all over again. It’s the same argument that she has with herself every night before she goes to sleep. Did he do this, send her home? Did he send her home because she was going to have a baby? Did he do it because he didn’t want to be troubled with her? That he was coward enough to not want to be a part of her life and that he would be better served to send her home? She knew it was him; it had to have been him that sent her home. There were no other possibilities. Well, there was the off chance it was Ed, but she doubted that. Part of her wants to punch Charlie. Part of her wants to run back to him. Part of her wishes she never met him.

Leona finds herself drifting over to the more ostentatious rings now.

~~~

“Charlie, is it now?” Willem Lefebvre says, gesturing to a seat at the desk. The maid is waved off and the door closes. The men are alone. “Can I offer you a cigarette or perhaps a scotch instead?”

Charlie stands at the desk, waiting for Mr. Lefebvre to sit. “No sir, thank you sir.”

“Are you a teetotaler, Charlie?”

“Not at all, but I thought we should talk first.”

Willem sits behind his grand desk and Charlie takes his seat. “Very well and if you don’t mind, I would like to get a professional courtesy out of the way. You’re an excellent writer. If things at UPI don’t work out after the war ends, whenever that may be, I would be more than happy to see what I could do for you.”

“The sentiment is appreciated and I thank you.”

“Were you unhappy with the money?” Willem asks at once while fumbling around for a cigarette.

With this, Charlie learns where Lee got the ability to cut to the quick. “It was never about the money.”

Willem takes a long drag off of his cigarette. “I gathered that fairly quickly once she came home. Do you want the money?”

“No.” Charlie responds, watching every action this man takes.

“I don’t know what that says about you, but I like it.” He pauses. “You know you have no place in her life, right? I’m not letting her out of my sight ever again and I’ll be honest, I don’t see how you could ever fit in here.”

“I could work for you. That’s not outside the realm of possibility.” Charlie retorts.

“It’s more than that Charlie. I can’t have a reporter that was former Marine with a bad temper anywhere close to the helm of this company.” Willem pauses to gage Charlie’s reaction and sees that Charlie is a bit taken aback about the knowledge Willem has of him. “Sure, you can work for me, but I need her to take this company into the future. I have plans and I thought that I needed her to be married to the right young man for it to happen. The grace of god has shown me that I need her and the right young man to make it happen. I need Leona’s ambition and Arthur’s vision. They’re going to take the Atlantis Media Group and make it a global brand. I can’t have someone that keeps her from doing that. She needs a business partner and not…” He takes another long drag from his cigarette. “…someone just to be there to fuck her.”

Charlie is fuming. “Our relationship…”

“NEVER HAPPENED.” He shouts at Charlie from behind the desk. “It never happened. You did the right thing by sending her home and because you did that, I will refrain from having… anything else done. You need to make your peace with God now Charlie because after today I don’t ever want to hear hide or hair of you near my daughter or family ever again.”

“She has the right to make up her own mind about that!” Charlie says now, standing, leaning over the desk. “If anything, if I can impart only one thing to you, I want you to let her make her own decisions and her own choices in the future! You need to respect her and the decisions she makes! Let her make her own mistakes and not to shelter her from the consequences of her actions!”

Willem is on his feet now as well. “Yeah, like you did you pretentious little asshole because if you believed a word you just said, she’s be with you on the other side of the planet right now. Sit the fuck down.”

Charlie blinks twice and realizes that her father is right. He slowly creeps back to his seat. When Charlie has returned to his seat, Willem returns to his.

Willem clears his throat. “On behalf of my daughter, thank you for returning her things. I know she missed the typewriter most of all. I’m sorry she couldn’t be here herself to thank you, but she’s out with her fiancé.” Willem grinds out his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk. “I also hear that some of your works were submitted for Pulitzer consideration this year. Good luck with that. That will surely help your career.”

Charlie shakes his head. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Willem stands at this point, evens out his suit. “What does?” With that, he crosses the room to leave. “The maid will be back in a moment to show you out Mr. Skinner.”

When Willem left the room, Charlie held his face in his hands. He shouldn’t have come.


End file.
